“Rudder You Doing Today?”

We started the day at 1:00 pm and began to take the plastic off of all of the parts we needed. After the plastic was off we de-burred the metal and started assembling the rudder. Before we could do anything else we had to mark and drill holes into the spar that was used to attach the ribs to. The problem that we faced was making sure that the ribs would be aligned and straight. When drilling the holes we had people spot to make sure that they weren’t at an angle. Once the holes were drilled we clecoed the ribs to the spar. Then we attached the assembled rudder to the tail of the frame via the hinge (eye-bolt to fork-bolt). The next obstacle was finding out if we could still get the plane out of the building by carrying it down the stairs. We folded up the horizontal stabilizers and used surgical tubing to hold them in place. Luckily we were able to carry it down and back up but had to turn it at different areas of the stairwell because the clearance was tight.

– Greta J.

Converting the decimal inch dimensions to millimeters to make it easier to transfer the hole locations using tape measure.

Using a C-channel extrusion to mark 4 lines every 90 degrees on the rudder spar.

Marking the rudder spar for drilling. The nylock nut plates have already been drilled and clecoed.

Filing the top end of the rudder spar to eliminate the interference with the top rib.

Removing the protective plastic film and deburring the rudder ribs prior to assembly.

Enlarging the holes in the nut plate.

It's coming together.

More cleco's.

Looking down on the rudder. Shiny goodness.

All that remains is making it permanent with some rivets.

Photo-op presented itself after performing the egress test from the building.